April 13, 2009

I don’t read Ms. Althouse... But I was arrested by Mr Sullivan’s response to what ought to be a celebration-worthy event — an engagement! —: his post was titled No Comment Possible.

Of course, saying “no comment possible” is, by itself, a ton of comment. In fact, Mr Sullivan comments further: “Ten days of emailing … and she was ready” (the slut!) and quotes another blog, the famously moderate and even-keeled Pandagon: “OMFG.”

The disdain is palpable.

Go to the link Gobry's story of meeting his fiancée on Facebook and his defense of on-line meetings. I'm continuing with the part about Sullivan. Gobry notes the "cognitive dissonance":

Mr Sullivan is, after all, one of the most talented and articulate proponents of same-sex marriage, and no doubt needs no education on the discrimination, both soft and hard, that can befall human beings based on their relationships. Yet he doesn’t miss a beat in responding derisively to Ms Althouse’s engagement even though… Who cares?

What should be treated as an unremarkable event, worthy of cheer if anything, is held up for derision, by someone who ought to know better. So I felt the need to speak up.

Yes, I too think that Sullivan's reaction to me was detrimental to the cause of same-sex marriage (for which he has fought so admirably). Obviously, he had to have thought he was serving his cause by asserting that his 5-year relationship deserved more respect than mine, but he has a tragic blind spot. He was acting as though it's perfectly fine to trash someone else's relationship because it strikes you at a gut level as wrong. But that's how millions of people feel about his relationship! If we start arguing in that emotional mode, your cause is doomed.

The first comment chez Gobry is quite something:

is this post about althouse or about you?

Look, it’s not that complicated. Online relationships are weird. Flirting between a blogger and a random commentator is double weird. Marriage after three dates is just fucking stupid. Toss in a raging storm of Ann Althouse hatred, plus Althouse’s own special brand of comic cluelessness, and you got a fun little story to pick over for a while. The bizzaro [sic] marriage is a final confirmation of what we all already knew, namely that this woman is batshit insane.

As for minding our own business? If Althouse didn’t want people to gossip about her private life, then maybe she shouldn’t have posted about it on the internet.

I love that Gobry responds right away in the next comment:

Actually, it’s about Sullivan and a few others.

And look, I disagree with you. Online relationships are no longer weird. Online dating services have been around for more than a decade now and countless people use them. And here in France, people have been using the Minitel to date since the 80s. Note that I haven’t used online dating services, but I honestly don’t see how anyone should find them weird in 2009.

Same thing with flirting between a blogger and a commentator. Why? I mean, honestly: why? Why is it weird? Why is it any weirder than, say, flirting with someone in line at Starbucks?

And marriage after three dates being “fucking stupid”… What particular expertise do you claim on the subject? I have friends who dated for like 5 years, moved in together, and then broke up after 3 weeks. That, to me, is fucking stupid. If a friend has met someone and wants to get engaged after three dates, I might be surprised and curious, but I haven’t been in his shoes, how the hell can I claim it’s stupid? I mean, seriously?

We’re talking about two private individuals we don’t know, who have made a decision that by definition none of us can understand because we haven’t been in their shoes and can’t understand their innermost motives, and yet we feel entitled to heap judgmental scorn on them.

That’s what’s pretty fucking stupid, in my opinion.

A good comment, from matoko_chan:

I thought Althouse’s love story was charming and romantic.

It is like a chaste victorian correspondence.

Since love and sexuality are initiated by brain function, what better way to really get to know someone, than as a pure intelligence scraped off of physical packaging and environmental distractions?

After 4 years of meeting minds, I think Ann Althouse and her sweetheart have a much better chance than most.

To give Andrew credit, I think he wonders if Althouse’s erstwhile suitor presented himself factually. After four years, I would believe the guy.

It is true that stalkers and predators roam the virtual spaces, but 4 years should be enough to reveal it.

Stalkers and predators are everywhere, on-line and off. You've got to look out. But who would spend 4 years writing comments on a blog to get at some 58-year-old lady in Madison, Wisconsin? You might as well worry that your spouse of 20 years is just faking the whole damned thing. Or that you yourself are a big empty fraud.

83 comments:

I dunno, I do think a blogger marrying a commenter is worthy of an "Oh my fucking God" comment. Just as the first non-arranged marriage was probably worthy of an "Oh my fucking God comment". And I would bet that the first gay marriage was worthy of an "Oh my fucking God" comment.

I don't think Sullivan was being dismissive at all. Stop being a victim.

Sullivan does not get heterosexual relationships/heterosexual sex--that includes perimenopausal hetero sex (Sarah Palin's forty-something pregnancy resulting in a much loved baby with Down's Syndrome), teenage hetero sex (Bristol Palin/Levi Johnson), OR Blogger and Commenter hooking up online(Princess Blogger Ann Althouse/Commenter Meade). If it is not a homosexual union, Andy just cannot fathom how or why it happened. And for some reason those hetero relationships infuriate him.

Why batshit insane? Why not catshit, ratshit, dogshit, camelshit, wolverineshit, pigshit,or Titusshit? What make batshit so special that it alone of all the types of shit gets to modify insane? Provide links please.

I just find it remarkable that a man who is apoplectic at the thought that someone may not approve of everything he does in his private life can sneer at something that someone else does in her private life. So, it's perfectly acceptable for Andrew to seek out pure physical pleasure on the internet but unacceptable for someone else to find and fall in love with someone on the internet. As Althouse herself said, if she was a man who scored with a female commenter, men would have an easier time with it. I would add - if she was a homosexual man who found love in his commentariat and got married, Andrew would break his arm patting himself on the back for revolutionizing the way men can meet each other and fall in love through the blogosphere.

I suspect that Sullivan is shocked that a man and woman Marriage had such a good reaction from the Blogger World. The Althouse/Meade romance and marriage has put the spotlight back on everyday Breeders, and this from someone who should have known better. He is squealing about the unfairness of his role in life once more.

As mentioned above, bat guano is excellent fertilizer. Clearly those on the left have grown strong in their insanity by planting their twisted utopian ideas in brains full of bat shit. Ok, that's not from the Urban dictionary, so YMMV.

I think Andrew's reaction was more about his disdain for Althouse in general and not his disdain for straight people getting married. Either way, we get another glimpse at just how childish he truly is.

"I think Andrew's reaction was more about his disdain for Althouse in general and not his disdain for straight people getting married. Either way, we get another glimpse at just how childish he truly is."

I think this is accurate. It has nothing to do with straight or gay and everything to do with the fact that Sullivan is an asshole.

as for the shit part, it may have something to do with nitrogen content or just plain renal failure instead:

The vampire bat and shrew have an extremely high protein intake, and the glomerular filtration rate (GFR) is not commensurate with the large urea load to be excreted. The vampire bat is chronically azotemic (blood urea concentration 27-57 mmol/l); yet there is no information as to how this animal has adjusted to such an azotemic internal environment. A high protein intake should also lead to chronic glomerular hyperfiltration; yet neither animal appears to develop progressive renal failure. The American black bear, on the other hand, has adapted to a prolonged period without intake or urine output. Despite continued amino acid catabolism with urea production, this mammal is able to completely salvage and reutilize urea nitrogen for protein synthesis, although the signals that initiate this metabolic adaptation are not known. The vampire bat, shrew, and bear are natural models adapted to circumstances analogous to chronic renal failure. Unraveling these adaptations could lead to new interventions for the prevention/treatment of chronic renal failure.

I do like the way a clueless and bat-shit crazy commenter readily identify themselves by applying horsewhipped terms like 'clueless' and 'bat-shit crazy', thinking themselves creative while still managing to swing at and miss the subject under discussion of the post with their opening clueless statement.

There. I just used up a year's allotment of those terms.

I believe readers here have given up on Sullivan long ago. He's arguing up and speaking now to a different audience.

The comparison of email to the high volume of daily correspondance sometimes used for wooing in Victorian times seems perfectly apt. And I might add that I met my wife through the internet -- not through a dating service, but a casual contact that then occasioned additional contact until we then spoke on the phone and eventually met.

This is far from uncommon these days, just in terms of meeting friends. The internet is where first contact is made.

This was not an OMFG moment for Randy Andy. It was a revenge moment. It was a woman scorned revenge moment. Randy Andy may be a biological male, but since he claims a husband, he is a mentally unstable female.

Ann and commenters here have criticized Randy Andy's moronic musings, especialy during the last election. He was just striking back, as only a harpy who has been wronged can; through vicious, vituperous, and small minded gossip.

If Amanda Marcotte did the same- who would marry that is beyond me- Randy Andy would have been generous in her congratulatory praise. Randy Andy just found a way to use his poison pen to strike back. The claws came out.

Hey, Randy Andy; a great name for a doll. Coming to a diversity store near you.

Ha ha ha. Shit got involved in bat-shit crazy the same way F got involved in OMFG, and AO got into LMAOL. It's the internet! Everything is emphasized with salacious swearing. It would be more creative though to say bat-shit slippery, or bat-shit skank, or how perhaps bat-sthit beetle infested, because that retains the visual image of bats flying around inside a bellfry as a substitution for ideas fluttering around an addled mind, and leaving the guano for visualization for another application.

I hereby resolve to slip in, heh, the term bat-shit slippery at the next possible opportunity by way of test drive.

Sorry, Professor but I beg to disagree. If he really wanted same-sex marriage Mr. Sullivan would have engaged religious leaders to hammer out some sort of acceptable compromise that would allow homosexual couples the same full legal status as marriage in a church. All he wants to do rant, and I stopped checking his blog a long time ago.

If anything he hurt his cause immeasurably by holding up examples of pathological heterosexual marriages and suggesting that if we can call that a marriage then we should allow homosexual marriages as well. Yeah, sure. Just what we need is more pathological examples of marriage to round out the 21st century.

Personally I think lesbians must be the dumbest people on the face of the earth, because they are letting the Andrew Sullivans of the world set the terms of the debate over homosexual unions. Every lesbian couple of which I am aware appears to be in a stable, long-term, affectionate and mutually-supportive relationship. Very like the way a marriage ought to be, and isn't always.

It has not escaped my notice that the common denominator is that at least one partner is female. Maybe the Victorians were onto something when they wrote about the civilizing effect of women.

He quite fairly wants full respect for gay relationships, not merely equivalent legal rights, and that is done by getting the whole idea of marriage to apply. This is also exactly the reason why people who oppose gay marriage feel so strongly.

Met online, not through a dating service--just talking about movies on AOL. Talked on the phone a day or two after meeting online. Moved in together on first meeting/date a few days after talking on the phone. Officially engaged three days after first date, though marriage was discussed and assumed on first date. Legally married within two months of first chatting online.

Blissfully happy over seven years later.

Relationships are unique. Each is a convergence of two paths, like a fork in the road, but each person coming off the tines to meet on the handle rather than the other way around. Endless ways for that to happen and an endless variation of possible timelines. Pretty neat.

From what I understand -- and I'm an atheist, not a professor of comparative religions -- to Christians and other religions marriage is a sacred state approved by God (or Allah or who knows whom else) while homosexual behavior is explicitly forbidden by these same religions. The prevailing attitude of the homosexual community seems to be "we will keep at it in the courts and whatever legislatures Democrats can dominate until we defeat you." How do you defeat God? And would that "victory" close out the culture wars? Or merely reinflame them?

I think it is possible that the simpliest explanation for Andrew Sullivan is the one that is most apt. He's just a rude jerk. What do you say when someone is getting married? "Best to the happy couple." You say this even when you don't wish them well, and even when you don't think they are happy.

Just because one has a blog, does not mean that one shouldn't keep one's mouth shut every now and then.

Sullivan sounds like a total drama queen. He really needs to get over himself and get back to whatever earned him his initial reputation as a writer. If all he's got is "OMFG" statements cribbed from billboards for "Gossip Girl" (coincidence? methinks not), that's pretty pathetic and unworthy of whatever p.o.s. "news" magazine is currently paying his salary.

And yeah, anyone who uses the term "batshit" is default a complete moron until they prove otherwise, in my book. Talk about ideological signaling language!

I'm not defending Sullivan here but I think you don't quite understand where his derision is coming from. I have been to plenty of weddings of straight friends and family members and celebrated their happiness without hesitation... and I'm sure Sullivan has too. But as a gay man who has been in a serious, committed, monogamous, long-term, loving relationship that is denied all kinds of privileges available to straight relationships, I do bristle when I witness Britney Spears getting married on a whim. And, while I wish Althouse and Meade all the happiness they can find in each other, that is also a sharp reminder to me of the injustice that allows them access to the benefits of marriage with so little investment in each other and having already married and divorced in the past. Althouse is right that it is politically unwise to say so, but it is rooted in a genuine and understandable grievance that many people in serious gay and lesbian relationships feel.

Were you and Sully always antagonistic or were you friendly at one time? (Sorry to be so nosy, but I feel like if I'd been around longer I'd know this anyway.) I've followed his blog for a long time I don't recall reading the blog-history with you guys.

I suppose people who meet at church socials have a better chance at a successful marriage than people who meet in crack houses. That said, it doesn't seem that the way people first meet is anywhere near as important as what happens after they meet....Human relationships are inherently unstable. Shrug your shoulders at the wrong time or offer a joke instead of a hug and the relationship begins to curl around the edges. If there is a convenient exit, the over/under on every marriage is seven years.

Andrew Sullivan is just a nasty person and has no class. You flat out do not comment publicly on other people's decision to marry. It shows no class. It is none of Andrew's or mine or anyone else's business who Ann marries. She is a grown woman and this arrangement works for her. The proper response is congratulations. You may have your reservations about this or that aspect of the relationship. Since you are not the one doing it, you do not have the information to make an intelligent judgement about the decision, so you shut up and wish them well and hope that whatever reservations you have turn out to be false.

This whole episode shows just what a horrible human being Sullivan is. He seems incapable of wishing those who disagree with him anything but ill. Any normal human being's response to this news would have been "good for Ann, I hope it works out for her." But not Andrew. I used to really dislike Sullivan. But, lately I just feel bad for him. Anyone who is so angry and bitter at his philosophical opponents that they can't be happy for a pending marriage, is just a sad, pathetic person.

I know a couple of couples who met on-line and got married after meeting only a couple of times.

One is my cousin who married a man she met while doing genealogy research about the family in the "old country." And the thing of it is... they were pretty much serious before ever deciding to meet. That was the point of meeting! By that time they knew each other very well and had corresponded for some time. Deciding to meet was specifically to see if there was a physical spark to go with the mental accord, and also get an idea if cultural differences would pose too much of a problem. Transatlantic air travel is sort of expensive, after all. He came here once, she went to Europe, he visited here again, and she went to his home to visit a second time and he proposed. They live there now.

Even so... saying that they only met four times and decided to get married wouldn't be true.

I loathed Andrew Sullivan when everyone else liked him, and started to like him when everyone else started to loathe him. But in many cases, I enjoy his loathers as much as I enjoy him (and by "him", I mean his blog).

I'm in a not-reading-blogs-much phase right now, so I just have this post to go with, but I think it's too bad and my gut reaction is that there is a misunderstanding.

My husband and I bought our house 11 months after our first date--an idea which prior to our first date (and even 3-4 months after), I would have scoffed at. Now I know better! :)

It's a funny fallacy that people think they know with great certainty how they're going to feel about something before it happens. The fact is, we cannot predict the future.

@Joseph H, I am not unsympathetic, but I want to know, which is more important to you. The word "marriage," which excites a cultural backlash from those who take their religion seriously? Or the legal rights and privileges? I think all but a handful of the people who take religion seriously would let you have the latter. The word "marriage" is what's killing you. That, and letting Andrew Sullivan be your spokesperson. Because saying that Britney Spears has the right to a sham marriage therefore you should be allowed to have a sham marriage is not the message you should be trying to convey. (Yes, I read your comment all the way through -- I know you started out saying that you are not in a "sham" relationship. But comparing yourself to Ms. Spears is not your best strategy IMHO.)

I wish you all the love in the word Althouse!My husband and I met each other through the internet as well.We corresponded for 2 months, before he flew from America to England, to meet me.He asked me to marry him on our second day together in England.I flew to America 3 months later and we got married 5 days later.We saw each other for a total of FOURTEEN days, before we got married, even though we've been in contact for 6 months by then.We fit each other like a hand in a glove, we are each other's missing puzzle pieces.We've been married for a little more than a year now and we are still loving each other more and more every day.You KNOW when you KNOW.

Big Mike--Religious people have every right to oppose extending religious marriages to gay couples in their churches. The word that concerns me is not "marriage" but "civil marriage," about which others' religious objections do not move me.

If I read you correctly, you would recommend pursuing "civil unions" which would be a "separate but equal" institution for gay couples, and in that system we can achieve legal equality and avoid unnecessarily offending the religious conservatives. I see a few problems with that. First, I don't think the semantics of the issue are really as important to people as they claim. Second, I can't imagine civil unions becoming more than a transitional institution because the trend lines in support of same sex marriage have been so steadily and predictably moving in one direction for the past two decades and I can't foresee some sudden reversal at this point. Third, civil unions that are purportedly equal to marriages under one state's laws are not--they are not recognized by other states and the federal government where those entities (now and in the future) recognize "marriages" from other states.

"Andrew Sullivan is quite a prude, if you think about it. If he wasn't gay, I think he'd crusade against gay rights."

Sullivan is completely intollerant and self centered. His entire political world view is based around his desire to have a white wedding. If he had been straight and already had said white wedding, I have no doubt he would think nothing of crusading to ensure gays couldn't.

This is a man who spends countless collumn inches imploring everyone to accept his lifestyle and choices but then thinks nothing of trashing Althouse for marrying though an on-line relationship. The hypocrisy of his one the one hand pleading for tolerance and on the other being completely judgemental and intolerent towards Althouse never even occurs to Sullivan. Under the right circumstances, it is not difficult ot imagine Sullivan justifying nearly any sort of behavior no matter how deplorable as long as that behavior advanced the his self interests.

He was acting as though it's perfectly fine to trash someone else's relationship because it strikes you at a gut level as wrong. But that's how millions of people feel about his relationship! If we start arguing in that emotional mode, your cause is doomed.Holy cow! that's a triple with the bases loaded professor.. Im glad to see Finally other bloggers saying something on you behalf! about time.

@Joseph, I know some fairly devout people, and I assure you that the semantics are every bit as serious as I claimed.

Your comment about civil unions being a "transitional institution" is a red herring. If you can get it, take it. The trend lines may be going in your direction, but take another look at the data. You can get more than 50% for civil unions right now, and 50% for marriage not for another several years. You're kind of the starving guy who walks past a free food kitchen because he doesn't like soup of the day.

Your point #3 can be fixed. If you want to fix it. I think you and Sully would rather fight Christians (and Muslims).

I find it ironic - and hypocritical - that a law professor keeps hiding behind the don't-pass-judgment argument ("Can't I be absolved?"). As I asked before: do you tell your students the law is based on how you feel?

Now that I know you're a liberal, it makes total sense that you could care less for the larger issues, which affect us all, in favor of your own selfish desires. It's parr for the course.

"Who would spend 4 years writing comments on a blog to get at some 58-year-old lady in Madison, Wisconsin?"You're not "some 58-year-old lady in Madison, Wisconsin", but ANN FRIGGIN' ALTHOUSE - one of a few famous bloggers, so that line is disingenuous as well. And let's look at this, based on what has been revealed:

Meade's marriage was "unraveling". Did his budding affections for ANN FRIGGIN' ALTHOUSE contribute anything to healing his supposedly life-long commitment?? Based on (what little) we know, it's doubtful. Meade could focus on trading up, in a manner of speaking, rather than focussing on his personal responsibility - what he swore on the day he was wed. Talking to another woman, especially a famous one, could hardly have been a help there.

"You might as well worry that your spouse of 20 years is just faking the whole damned thing. Or that you yourself are a big empty fraud."As someone who discovered his wife of 20 years was faking the whole thing - and killed her own mother - this one stung, but ties into my previous points:

Even after I'd discovered my wife's 20 years of deception, and her crime, I still tried to "fix" things - and what stood in my way? Liberals (friends, lawyers, police, doctors - you name it) with their "she's free to do whatever she wants - you're a man" attitude - over-riding all my objections and evidence - eventually leading to the murder of two other people because she, her various "protectors" (who were assuming my role as her husband), and her new "love" (a habitual liar and quack doctor) didn't give a fig for the truth of the reality of what was occurring. Like you fascination for American Idol, it was all part of an extremely shallow, culture-killing whole and I will never forget it. Especially the day my own divorce lawyer discovered my wife was a murderer, just as I'd said, and realized he'd stood in my way as a husband, too - always with my wife's best interest at heart:

The lack of introspection about all this should make YOU feel like a fraud. That's what a normal person would be dealing with, but, as I keep pointing out, NewAgers/Liberals, etc. are only ruthlessly out for themselves, eschewing shame, morality, society, and anything else they find inconvenient to what they want. And, as my story illuminates - while others pay a terrible price for their nonsense - it usually comes back to bite the transgressors on the ass as well. That's life - and it's more ruthless than you ever will be - hiding behind your immature aspirations (and fake exhortations) for "peace" and "love".

You'd think more about others - "The Big Picture" - if it were otherwise.

Crack MC, aren't you an atheist? Where do you get your moral axioms? I mean, if you were Catholic or fundamentalist Protestant then I at least you know you're drawing from the Good Book or something. But I could have sworn I read that you'd pushed aside all that God stuff right along with the New Age crap that you love to (rightly) criticize.

I mean, surely you can't tell us that being married to a woman for 20 years who, by your own admission, deceived you for the duration and culminated in adultery and murder is supposed to be convincing evidence to us that the real problem is people just don't stick it out.

"Crack MC, aren't you an atheist? Where do you get your moral axioms?"Yes, I'm an atheist - and ethics needs no religious foundation. Christopher Hitchens says, in "God Is Not Great", that it's religion that leads to unethical behavior. I think it's belief itself that does it. A person can believe anything, like what they do has no affect on others, which is obviously not true.

"I mean, surely you can't tell us that being married to a woman for 20 years who, by your own admission, deceived you for the duration and culminated in adultery and murder is supposed to be convincing evidence to us that the real problem is people just don't stick it out."I didn't say that. I'm saying, in a society with no ethical foundation, nothing is true - like marriage. My wife couldn't have done the things she did if this society didn't support it: If I wasn't standing alone. I not only encountered a wide range of official back-up for my wife's transgressions but was able to listen to 20 years of recordings she made, with countless NewAge/liberal types, all telling her she had every right to believe what she wanted to believe and strike out on her own - when they knew she was married - and those tapes were made primarily by women and gays who, BTW, had never met me. That same message is broadcast to all of us, daily, in music, movies, television, our culture. I never stood a chance. My marriage never stood a chance.

So what was I supposed to do when "my wife" was in trouble? Abandon her? Doesn't her troubles fall under "for better or for worse"? I ask you again: do these words mean anything to you, or is life just one big search for an escape hatch? (What about integrity?) If it's all about nothing - think of the sad and creepy ending of Seinfeld with everyone in jail making small talk - then why go through the motions of pretending otherwise? Why is Ann Althouse a law professor if she has no respect for law, custom, etc.? Why are she and Meade getting "married" if they've already been "married" before and - don't deny it - may get "married" again? Face it: that ain't marriage - it's selfish delusion with a demand the rest of us go further down the rabbit hole with them. What is thought itself if the answer to every difficult adult question is either attack the messenger or an immature stream of snarkiness? What are you guys doing to our country? To the world? Don't tell me this is "progress" because it's not - it's a return to The Dark Ages. A world where we talk on computers but people insist we "can't know anything." Where water is sold in Health Food stores as "medicine". Where astrology survives - no, thrives - and nobody acts like it hasn't been thoroughly debunked. Where Oprah promotes The Secret and nobody admits she's nuts. Why, Oprah's so credible a law professor even votes for her candidate - a candidate with a record of merely running for office and hanging with dubious personalities - and I'm not supposed to notice that, as she critiques him negatively? Hell, she put him into office!!! The whole liberal landscape is a mindfuck.

Anyway, yea, I would have stuck it out in my marriage. My wife probably would've had to get some mental help, or even do time or probation, but I would've stuck by her - I love her - and that's supposed to be why you get married to one special person. And, I might add, two other people would probably be alive today who aren't if that had happened. Instead, they're dead, tons of friendships and family ties are broken, we're all financially poorer, and none of us will ever trust people in the same way again. Though it may seem like it, I can't even start to calculate all the damage done because so few thought doing the right thing - having ethics - was worthy of serious consideration.

And all I see around me is people more-than-ready to keep that ugly ball rollin'.

Can't you guys see that a lack of respect for ethics - and integrity - is the root of our nation's problems?

I find it ironic - and hypocritical - that a law professor keeps hiding behind the don't-pass-judgment argument ("Can't I be absolved?")I think you misunderstand: In order to be absolved, you must first be judged guilty of something.

Yes, I'm an atheist - and ethics needs no religious foundation.Of course not---but it means the burden of proof that you've got the right ethics is far higher.

Christopher Hitchens says, in "God Is Not Great", that it's religion that leads to unethical behavior.Yeah, well, he's an idiot about such things.

I think it's belief itself that does it. A person can believe anything, like what they do has no affect on others, which is obviously not true.This isn't much better. Heck it doesn't even make sense. I mean, you seem to have pretty damn strong beliefs, which means by your own logic you're likely quite unethical. Clearly, the problem isn't any belief, but the wrong ones. Which gets back to the ol' "what are your axioms" question.

I never stood a chance. My marriage never stood a chance.Crack, give it up. I mean, look, if you want me to agree that society has it in about marriage, I'll be the first to raise my hand. I'm quite a conservative on this and my axioms come from Scripture.

But for crying out loud, I've read your blog. Your wife was fucked UP. By your own admission she had been lying to you for 20 years. Your marriage never had a chance, yes, because your wife was screwed up from the start. If you want some kudos from me for staying with her anyway---well, OK, clap clap clap. Bravo. You married a woman you never should have married in the first place (I think you know that), but you were enough of a self-flagellator to stick it out til the bitter end. Good for you.

Why is Ann Althouse a law professor if she has no respect for law, custom, etc.?Well this is just stupid, MC. If this is where your ethics leads you, get some new ones.

Why are she and Meade getting "married" if they've already been "married" before and - don't deny it - may get "married" again? Face it: that ain't marriage - it's selfish delusion with a demand the rest of us go further down the rabbit hole with them.Again, MC, where do you get your axioms? For goodness' sake. I mean, you're to the right of the most conservative Christians on this one. I mean, your average Baptist doesn't believe in divorce save for adultery and the abandonment of an unbelieving spouse, but under those exceptions they permit remarriage.

Besides, you don't know shit about Meade's situation save one line in a NYTimes article.

A world where we talk on computers but people insist we "can't know anything." Where water is sold in Health Food stores as "medicine". Where astrology survives - no, thrives - and nobody acts like it hasn't been thoroughly debunked. Where atheists pull hyper-conservative ethical standards out of their rectum!

"My axioms come from Scripture."Fine. So shouldn't you be out stoning somebody or something?

"If you want me to agree that society has it in about marriage, I'll be the first to raise my hand."So we agree on that. Good.

"For crying out loud, I've read your blog. Your wife was fucked UP."Yes - but if that's the case, then why would no one help me get her help? Because she is a woman and I'm a man and I must have done *something* to her. That was the message I got repeatedly. That's the cultural meme we live under.

And again - when your spouse is fucked up is when they need you most: that's the point of being a spouse.

Blake,

"Do you expect them to just drop this now, because you're the voice of reason?"Why not? People cancel weddings all the time. And, whoa, don't let a little thing like reason stand in the way of anything. Let's just carry on in the name of "stupidity" - that always produces good results for everybody.

Seven Machos,

"I don't believe anyone who has anal sex without a condom and with someone he does not know has any place in his life for schadenfreude."Really. And they will argue for acceptance of stupidity - not reason - 'til the day they die. I watched it in San Francisco when AIDS hit (I did one of the first AIDS brochures, warning of the crisis): the mayor wanted to close the bath houses and gays screamed bloody murder about their "lifestyle" - and died by the millions for their stupidity. They still blame everyone else for that, when the blame lays squarely on their own shoulders, for their irresponsibility. They ran instead to Louise Hay's New Age House of Death. That's how it works when reason is ignored for the sake of rebellion.